FIFRAblog®

On October 19, 2022, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it activated its emerging viral pathogen (EVP) guidance in support of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) response to the Ebola virus cases in western Uganda. With EPA’s EVP guidance, additional disinfectants, for which EVP claims have been approved, can be used against the Ebola virus. According to EPA’s press release, EPA developed its EVP...

October 26, 202212:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. (EDT) The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reports that 48 million people in the United States (1 in 6) get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die each year from foodborne diseases. In 2011, President Obama signed into law the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) in part to address this significant public health issue. FSMA is a comprehensive law intended to shift the focus of foodborne illness...

On September 2, 2022, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPR) seeking input from stakeholders about how to update its organic regulations on inert ingredients in pesticides used in organic production. 87 Fed. Reg. 54173. AMS seeks comments on alternatives to its existing regulations that would align with the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 (OFPA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on August 18, 2022, it released its draft ecological risk assessment for dicamba for a 60-day public review. 87 Fed. Reg. 50854. The 287-page assessment examines the potential ecological risks associated with currently registered uses of dicamba on non-target, non-listed species. Risks to federally listed threatened and endangered species are not evaluated in the assessment. EPA is reevaluating the risks of dicamba...

On September 1, 2022, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced the availability of two new resources to answer stakeholder questions regarding the revised biotechnology regulations under 7 C.F.R. Part 340: These resources, along with other information on the revised biotechnology regulations, are available on the APHIS website. For additional questions regarding the regulation of modified microorganisms, contact APHIS...

On July 12, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (Court) issued an opinion in Carson v. Monsanto that reverses a ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia (District Court) that the Plaintiff’s failure to warn claim under Georgia law was preempted by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). The Plaintiff alleged that Monsanto’s label for its product Roundup®, which contains the active ingredient glyphosate,...

On July 6, 2022, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a proposed consent decree intended to resolve the case, Center for Food Safety, et al. v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (3:21-cv-09640-JSC), brought against EPA in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California alleging that EPA has unreasonably delayed responding to a petition for rulemaking relating to the regulatory exemption of pesticide treated seed.  87...

On July 1, 2022, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a notice in the Federal Register announcing the availability of its progress report in meeting its performance measures and goals for pesticide reregistration during fiscal year (FY) 2019 (2019 Report).  87 Fed. Reg. 39517.  Section 4(l) of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) requires EPA to publish information about EPA’s annual achievements in this area.  The 2019...

The latest episode of Bergeson & Campbell, P.C.’s (B&C®) All Things Chemical® podcast, “Balancing Wildlife Protection and Responsible Pesticide Use — A Conversation with Jake Li,” features a conversation with Jake Li, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Pesticide Programs, Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Conversation topics include what the Administration is doing to balance wildlife protection and...

On May 25, 2022, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) announced that it will hold three public workshops to collect feedback on the next phase of design and development for DPR’s pesticide application notification system. DPR states that the workshops will be hosted online via Zoom and facilitated by the UC Davis Center for Regional Change. Each workshop will follow the same format, including a brief overview of the proposed design for the statewide...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on May 26, 2022, that on Monday, May 23, 2022, it has activated its Emerging Viral Pathogen (EVP) Guidance for Antimicrobial Pesticides (Guidance) in response to monkeypox, which had been considered to be a rare disease caused by infection with the monkeypox virus. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), monkeypox was first discovered in 1958 when two outbreaks of a pox-like disease occurred in...

As reported in our November 2, 2020, blog item, on October 30, 2020, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a final rule on the Agricultural Worker Protection Standard (WPS) regulation that revises the requirements on the pesticide application exclusion zone (AEZ), defined as an “area surrounding the point(s) of pesticide discharge from the application equipment that must generally be free of all persons during pesticide applications.” The final AEZ requirements were...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on May 11, 2022, that it is launching a new, modern Design for the Environment (DfE) logo that will appear on antimicrobial products like disinfectants and sanitizers within the next year. EPA intends the DfE logo to help consumers and commercial buyers identify antimicrobial products that meet the health and safety standards of the typical pesticide registration process required by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and...

 On May 6, 2022, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a notice in the Federal Register announcing the availability of, and requesting comments on, data related to aquatic toxicity of chitosan salts. 87 Fed. Reg. 27059. Specifically, EPA is seeking comments on the following two aquatic toxicity reports submitted by Tidal Vision Products, LLC (Tidal Vision), the company that submitted a petition to EPA on October 10, 2018, requesting that EPA add chitosan to...

According to a May 9, 2022, news item published by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), “Advancing EPA’s Understanding of the Next Generation of Pesticides,” over the past decade, EPA “has received an increasing number of pesticide product applications that potentially contain nanomaterials.” The article notes that EPA’s current pesticide review method was not designed for nanomaterials, so each product is reviewed on a case-by-case basis. An EPA research team led by EPA...

Wednesday, May 18, 202212:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. (EDT)Register Today A circular economy requires new thinking about what products we make, from which materials we make them, and where products go at the end of their useful life. An important but often overlooked aspect of new product development is an understanding of the consequences of the product’s chemical composition and the end-of-life implications of the decisions made at the front end of the process. Working...

On April 13, 2022, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) issued a Notice of Modification to Proposed Regulation on Safe Harbor Warnings for Glyphosate and Addition of Documents to Rulemaking File (Notice). OEHHA first proposed this regulation by publishing a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on July 23, 2021. OEHHA provided a 75-day comment period on the original proposal and its Initial Statement of Reasons (ISOR), including an extension to file comments until...

On April 15, 2022, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced final product performance data requirements for products claiming efficacy against certain pests. 87 Fed. Reg. 22464. This action officially incorporates EPA’s already existing product performance standards requirements for certain invertebrate pests into the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR).  EPA states this action also increases the efficiency of its approval process and will save...

Bergeson & Campbell, P.C.’s (B&C®) April 20, 2022, webinar “FIFRA Hot Topics” is now available for on-demand viewing at https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/recording/7426709986449689102. During this one-hour webinar, Lisa M. Campbell, Partner, B&C, moderated a lively and informative discussion between Edward Messina, Director, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP), and James V. Aidala, Senior Government Affairs Consultant, B&C, as...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on April 18, 2022, that it will hold a webinar on May 11, 2022, entitled “Data-Driven Solutions to Reducing Animal Use in Ecotoxicity.” Speakers will include: The webinar is co-organized by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Science Consortium International, EPA, and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM). EPA notes that it does not necessarily endorse the views of the...